/*
 *  Copyright 2008 Mark Ashworth <javameme@gmail.com>.
 * 
 *  Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3 (the "License");
 *  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 *  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 * 
 *       http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
 * 
 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 *  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 *  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 *  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 *  limitations under the License.
 *  under the License.
 */
package metaphor.persistence.xml;

import org.dom4j.Element;

/**
 * Resolves a name or a java.lang.String to a persistent class. For example in
 * an XML import application the PersistentClassResolver could be used to
 * resolve the XML element <gender name="MALE" /> to the Gender class which then
 * can be imported using the data access classes.
 * 
 * @author Mark Ashworth <javameme@gmail.com>
 * @version 1.0.0
 */
public interface PersistentClassResolver {
    /**
     * Resolves the <i>name</i> to a persistent class that can be inserted, 
     * updated and retrieved from the database.
     * 
     * @param element The element to resolve to a persistent class
     * @return Class or null is the persistent class could not be resolved
     */
    Class resolve(Element element);
}
